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Le Mans blog: Panoz responds to DeltaWing doubters, 'Why not?'

June 12, 2012

Racing visionary Don Panoz is said to a big investor in the DeltaWing project. Photo by Rick Dole

Tuesday was another rainy day in Le Mans. I ran into Don Panoz taking shelter behind the DeltaWing garage and got to spend a few uninterrupted minutes with him. I really just wanted to know what convinced him to get involved with the DeltaWing project. His response refers to another decision he made 30 years ago that has come full circle.

In 1982, the Chateau Elan winery opened in, at the time, the Middle of Nowhere, Georgia. It was a good 45-minute drive northeast of the heart of Atlanta, and when you drove down Interstate 85, you could see this chateau atop a hill, and surrounded by red clay. Several months later, I drove past it and clay fields had something growing in them--grapes.

A few years prior, Panoz decided he wanted to produce wine in Georgia. No one had really tried before. He realized that many of the immigrants that settled in Northern California were from Spain and Italy--countries that love wine. And many of the immigrants that settled in Georgia were from Scotland, Ireland and England--countries that love whiskey and beer.

But he wanted to know if grapes could grow in Georgia clay. So he retained a bunch of California soil experts, flew them to Georgia and analyzed their findings. The data showed it could work. And when he shared his ideas with others, everyone asked the same question, “Why?”

If Don Panoz has only one skill, it is his ability to see what others don't. He had bought 2,000 acres around Chateau Elan, and he knew the Atlanta population was growing. With his data analyzed and his big plan firmly planted, he responded to the critics who said it would never work with two simple words, “Why not?”

Thirty years later, the once little sleepy town of Braselton, Ga., is a thriving commuter suburb of Atlanta, surrounded by subdivisions, hotels, restaurants, shopping centers and a chateau sitting in the middle of a vineyard that you can see every time your drive down I-85.

At the 2010 Petit Le Mans, Don met with designer Ben Bowlby and Duncan Dayton about Bowlby's radically designed race car called DeltaWing.

“My first reaction,” Panoz says, “was the same as everyone. Will it turn? Will it fly? But after analyzing the data Ben provided, I believed it would work.” So he went to the Automobile Club de l'Ouest and the project, no pun intended, took off.

There are several investors in the DeltaWing project. It is believed that Panoz has the most skin in the game. This, for the most part, seems to be a positive. His relationship with the ACO is strong and influential. His ownership of the American Le Mans Series and Elan Motorsports Technologies is akin to owning those 2,000 acres around a chateau.

He hopes the DeltaWing will race in more of the 2012 World Endurance Championship events. This will be decided by the FIA and the ACO (the Le Mans organizing body), but the odds are strongly in its favor that the car will see the track again this year. Additionally, Nissan sells a lot of cars in Japan and Brazil, and both have WEC races later this year.

“The car will race at Petit Le Mans in October,” Panoz says. “We hope in 2013 it will be eligible to race as both a LMP1 and a LMP2 car. Of course regulations need to be written, similar to those when the diesel-powered cars [Audi and Peugeot] entered sports-car racing.” He also said the DeltaWing could become the spec car for the LMPC class in American Le Mans Series in 2014.

Panoz reflected on how quickly endurance racing is changing. “A couple of years ago, everyone said the front tires needed to be as wide as the rear tires on a prototype. With the DeltaWing,” he continued, “we have proven that a car with a fraction of the size of the conventional thinking, that has half the mass, half the power and a brilliant design can compete. This is the truly green racing.”

He concluded with this statement: “When people ask me why I got involved with the DeltaWing, my response is simply 'Why not?' ”

And with that he excused himself to run off to a meeting. I think it was with his crystal ball.